Grateful

by christie, honoring health on November 26, 2009

I woke up this morning and feelings of gratitude washed over me and it reminded me that being grateful isn’t about a date on the calendar. Being grateful is a feeling in our hearts and should be expressed every day, not just today. I often get so caught up in the day to day of life that I don’t take the time I should to just be thankful for what I have.

I have a wonderful husband who supports me to no end. He stuck by me through some of the biggest challenges of my life. He washes the dishes after every meal and even helps with the laundry. He makes me laugh without trying to be funny. He embraces my dreams and makes me feel like anything is possible. Today and always, I am grateful for my husband.

Waikiki Beach (4)

I have a yoga practice that pushes me to new heights physically, emotionally and spiritually. A practice that started as something different, I even wore my heart rate monitor to my first class. It kept beeping and beeping until my beautiful teacher, Laura, asked me to remove it and buried it under a pillow in the lobby. My, how I am grown in my practice. I don’t even know where that watch is anymore. Today and always, I am grateful for my yoga practice.

I have a beautiful home that holds all of the beings closest to my heart. A tiny kitchen in which to prepare beautiful meals and throw away the flops. A home that stands firm in roughest of  storms and is my soft place to fall. Today and always, I am grateful for the place I call home.

004002005

I have friendships that have proven the test of time and ones that are just beginning to grow. People that have stood by me through all of the changes life has thrown my way. People that have a piece of my heart and people that are burned into my soul. Today and always, I am grateful for my friends.

What are you grateful for?

Related Posts:

{ 5 comments }

A Personal Revolution, Part I

by christie, honoring health on November 24, 2009

The weeks, days and hours leading up to the Baron Baptiste “A Personal Revolution” yoga workshop were studded with all sorts of emotion. Work has been stressful, my calendar was overflowing but mostly, I was afraid. I was worried that my body wouldn’t make it and that I would crumble into a puddle of tears on my mat. My eating and exercise habits were suffering and my emotions were all over the place. Physically, I knew that this was going to be the hardest thing I had ever gone through in my life. I knew that I would be pushed beyond my former barriers and that the limiting beliefs I had about my body would be challenged. And what would all of this mean emotionally? What if I wasn’t ready to take this on? What if I wasn’t ready for a revolution?

I sat on the plane Friday morning and decided to read Journey Into Power by Baron himself for a second time. As I read through the pages, I knew that I was going on this trip and that it would be my journey into power. A particular passage struck me and my mantra to get me through bubbled up. If it is emotional, I will stay. I will stay when the going gets tough and my walls are melting. I will stay when my thighs are trembling and my abs are screaming and my mind is telling me to flee. Change happens when you stay.

That night, we went to a power class at the only Baptiste affiliate studio in Dallas, Yoga Sport. The class was challenging and I put my new mantra to the test. We flowed through an intense warrior series and I wanted to bail. I was in parivritta parsvakonasana and I brought my hand up from floor and started to stand. If it is emotional, I will stay. I placed my hand back to the floor and pushed through those final breaths. I let out a heavy sigh when she instructed us back to the floor.

I left that class feeling recharged from the stresses on my “real world” and ready to break down my walls. I was only hours away from my personal revolution…

Related Posts:

{ 4 comments }

Dallas Bloggie Meet Up

by christie, honoring health on November 23, 2009

I’m back from Dallas and had an amazing experience of practicing yoga with Baron Baptiste. I plan to write a series about it soon, once I’m settled and caught up on my sleep but until then, I want to tell you about my meet up with Elizabeth. Elizabeth writes the blog The Dallas Celiac and we became instant bloggies friends a while back. At first, we bonded over gluten free living but has since discovered we have plenty of others things in common too. So, as soon as I knew I was going to Dallas, I knew we had to meet up. Our schedule was a bit crazy so we decided to meet up at Starbucks on our way back to the airport yesterday.

Picture 005

We met around 9 am in the tiniest Starbucks ever but we still had an awesome time. We chatted over lattes about being gluten free, blogging and of course, yoga. We share the same ideas and opinions on so many things, I felt like we had been friends forever :) I wish we would have had more time to spend because we could have seriously chatted away the day.  I know that if we lived closer to one another, we would be great friends.

Thanks for coming out to meet me, Elizabeth, I hope we can meet again someday soon.

You can check out her recap of our meet up here.

Related Posts:

{ 5 comments }

Dallas, Here I Come

November 19, 2009

The past couple of nights have been spent packing my bags for my trip this weekend. My friend, and travel companion, Susan and I are trying to share one bag to save the expenses of checking our luggage. Ordinarily, for a weekend trip by plane, I would just do a carry on but we couldn’t figure [...]

8 comments read the rest →

Simple Eats & Baron Baptiste

November 17, 2009

Thank you all for your kind words about my last post. It was filled with a full spectrum of emotion and it means so much to me to have your sweet comments. I often feel that I put way too much out there for others to read and judge but I know that in the [...]

8 comments read the rest →

The Ultimate Opening of the Heart

November 15, 2009

Yesterday was the five year anniversary of my brothers passing and I was nervous about what the day would bring. I had to drive down to Virginia Beach for my training session that also included the ever fretted sanskrit test. I was nervous that I would crumble into a puddle of tears and not be [...]

10 comments read the rest →

Guest Post: The Anorexic Yogini by Erica Rivera

November 13, 2009

I was recently contacted by Melissa at the Penguin Publishing group to receive a copy of the book Insatiable: A Young Mother’s Struggle with Anorexia written by Erica Rivera. The book tells the gripping story of her battle with anorexia and though we don’t share the same disorder, I could relate to so many of [...]

4 comments read the rest →